


Streetwise

by the_rat_wins



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: (yet), Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M, Minor Character Death, Shameless Reverse Bang, Vomiting, also the rating is for the violence, i try to make it a point to kill terry in every fic, no robot sex here, whenever possible, yeah i killed terry again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 01:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9468719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rat_wins/pseuds/the_rat_wins
Summary: “I have the shell,” Mickey says. “And you’re gonna help me if you want your brother back still breathing.”(Ian accidentally ends up in the middle of a robot uprising AU)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Shameless Reverse Bang Challenge! Thank you to me-ladie for the lovely and inspirational [art](https://me-ladie.tumblr.com/post/156434451490/streetwise-theratwins-rating-teen/)!

[ ](https://me-ladie.tumblr.com/post/156434451490/streetwise-theratwins-rating-teen)

[ ](https://me-ladie.tumblr.com/post/156434451490/streetwise-theratwins-rating-teen)

“Yeah, we’ve got a problem,” Ian says quietly into his earpiece.

“Be specific,” Lip snaps. “Don’t give me this vague shit.”

“Fuck you,” Ian shoots back. “He’s leaving. With someone else. That qualify as a problem?”

“Are you fucking kidding right now?” Lip demands.

Ian ducks behind a pillar and rolls his eyes. “Why the fuck would I do that, Lip?” he says.

“Was he alone?”

“No, there was a woman with him. Dark hair, blue dress.”

“Recognize her?”

“No,” Ian says. “Christ, what the fuck do I do now?” He’s sweating, itchy and hot in his shitty rented tux. He can feel panic rising in his stomach, clouding his brain.

“Look, Ian, don’t freak out on me. This is gonna be fine,” Lip says, and Ian can almost hear it, Lip’s mind clicking through their plan, finding detours and escape routes.

“Should I follow them?” Ian says.

“Depends. Which way did they go?”

“The double doors.”

“OK, they’re going to the elevator, in the lobby. Head for the stairs, the white door on the far end, past the bar.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now! For fuck’s sake! Ten fucking minutes ago!”

Ian doesn’t run, and he doesn’t look at the white door. As far as any of the guests can tell, he’s heading calmly and casually toward the bar—except that he keeps going, confidently striding up to the white service entrance and turning the handle like he knows it’s going to open, when in fact he’s about 95 percent sure it won’t.

It does.

The second he hears the door shut behind him, he’s flying down the stairs three at a time, shitty too-tight shoes—also rented—pinching him with every step. Third floor, second floor . . . Before he busts through into the lobby, he takes a deep breath and swipes at his face with his sleeve, trying to hide the fact he’s been running.

The lobby is all warm golden light and gently shining crystal chandeliers, the quiet murmur of voices, and the occasional polite laugh. His tux is not especially out of place—other guests are coming and going, especially near—

The elevators. The second bay, the ones that lead to the towers with the guest rooms. Long dark hair, a shining blue dress, and next to her, bending his head down to laugh at whatever comment she just made, is Ian’s target.

“Found them,” Ian breathes into the earpiece. “Going upstairs to his room. Shit, what now?”

“No time,” Lip says. “Follow them up, get inside the room somehow.”

“How?” Ian had liked their plan. Their plan had been good. They were so far off the plan now, it might as well have never existed.

“Your natural charm and charisma,” Lip says. “I don’t know! Make something up.”

Ian’s mouth is moving before he even thinks about it.

“Mr. Ahmed!” he calls out. Still smiling at his new companion, the programmer stops, then turns to look back at Ian.

“Yes?” His voice is polite, but not friendly, and he looks Ian up and down, taking in his (crappy) suit and apparently placing him as part of the staff. Ian feels himself start to flush with embarrassment—but actually, that’s perfect.

“Your car,” he says, taking a wild fucking gamble, but at this point, they don’t really have anything left to lose. The plan is so dead, it’s going to be coming back hungry for brains in a minute.

Ahmed smiles, and Ian’s heart leaps. He can’t believe that worked.

“I don’t have a car,” the programmer says, and nods to Ian while taking the woman by the elbow and leading her into the elevator.

For the first time, Ian meets her eyes. Instead of the polite confusion or empty indifference he expected, she’s glaring at him, her blue eyes drilling into him. Then she tilts her head and smiles at the target, and it’s almost as alarming as the glare.

He takes half a step forward, opening his mouth to protest or to warn him, but before he can get a syllable out, the elevator door slides smoothly shut, leaving him gaping like a dying fish, out in the middle of the gold and crystal lobby.

 

“How the fuck could this happen?” Lip rages, the crappy connection making his face on Ian’s phone waver for a second. In the background, Ian can see what he thinks of as Lip’s Fortress of Solitude, except instead of ice and superhero stuff, it’s just computers and computer screens on every side. He’s not even looking at Ian.

Leaning up against the clammy stones of the alleyway behind the hotel, Ian can feel his failure like a physical weight in his stomach. He’s having some kind of flashback to Fiona shouting at him when he failed a test as a kid.

“This was _it_ , Ian.”

“I know,” Ian mutters. “It wasn’t—”

“Where did she come from? How did she get to him? Why would he leave with her? My intel said he was fucking gay!”

Ian shrugs. “Bi? Or she threatened him.” He’d felt threatened by her from ten feet away. If she’d come up to him with that look on her face and told him to get in an elevator, he couldn’t swear he wouldn’t have done it.

Lip makes an inarticulate noise of rage and spins to look at the screen with the security cam footage of the ballroom and the lobby of the hotel. It’s been twenty minutes, and neither Ahmed nor the woman in blue have reappeared.

Lip slumps forward and buries his head in his hands. “It’s all fucked. We’re supposed to deliver it in fifteen minutes. There’s literally no way—”

“Lip,” Ian says. “Upper left corner. She’s leaving. Do you think she has it?”

Lip spins and stares at the screen. “Fuck. Yes. Ian, go! Catch up to her and—”

“And _what_?” Ian says, but he’s already moving.

“And _whatever_! Just get that fucking shell and get it to the drop-off point!”

Ian swears and hangs up, jamming the phone into his too-tight pocket, running out of the alley and back up the street toward the hotel entrance. When he turns the corner, he sees the woman in the blue dress heading down a side street. He slows to a brisk, casual walk and turns the corner.

The electric shock judders through his muscles, and he goes down twitching—or he would have, if an inhumanly hard grip hadn’t closed around his arm and wrenched him back to his feet. He staggers drunkenly against the woman, unable to hold himself up, and she manhandles him up against the brick wall, his face pressed against it, her mouth close to his ear.

“The fuck are you following me for?” she demands. He can’t reply—little aftershocks are sparking through his nerves, and his jaw is locked up. He manages a pained hiss, and she wrenches his arm even harder in response. He gasps.

Her finger jabs at the tiny earpiece, and it dies with a whine and a pop. In his pocket, he feels his phone give an answering crackle, burning his leg.

“Stop,” he finally manages to get out. Lip is gonna kill him, he thinks woozily. Those things are expensive. “It’s just . . . a job. Let me—”

_“Mandy, stop,”_ says a flat electronic voice, from an earpiece of her own. _“You gotta go.”_

“Fine,” says the woman. Mandy. Her unnaturally strong arm shifts under his, supporting his weight with her shoulder and a death grip around his waist. “Make it look good, lover,” she sneers. “You don’t want anyone picking us up any more than I do.”

“Don’t—” Ian says weakly, but trails off when she turns to look at him, and an electric-blue light in her eyes flashes back at him. Automaton.

“Don’t tell me what to do, meatbag,” she says.

Someone like him doesn’t see someone—some _thing_ —like her very often. On TV, mostly, or guarding some celebrity or politician, if he goes somewhere fancy on a job for Lip.

He’s definitely never been this close to one. It’s incredible how human she seems. Her grip on him is too strong, but her fingers are warm and human. It’s a freaky combination.

He stumbles at little—she’s walking faster than he can manage, still stunned and trembling from the electric shock. “Please,” he mumbles. “I don’t—”

“I said shut up,” she snaps. But she also slows down. A little. Enough that he can look around, try to figure out where she’s taking him.

They’d moved quickly away from the hotel and into the tangle of alleys and access tunnels behind all the fancy buildings of the tech district. There’s piles of garbage and puddles of brown-green liquid, but the automaton guides them smoothly, without stopping.

Ian hasn’t seen much of the city since he moved here with Lip. But even if he’d been sightseeing instead of working a warehouse security job and running intel missions for Lip, he still doesn’t think he would have known where they are now. It doesn’t seem like a route that would be in anyone’s tour guide.

He almost starts to laugh from the sheer ridiculousness, imagining the picture they must make in their dress clothes, him half a foot taller, her clearly supporting his whole weight.

 “Shut up,” she says. “Or I’ll shut you up.”

“You can’t,” he says. “You can’t do it.”

She glowers. “Ripping your tongue out isn’t going to kill you,” she says. “Pretty sure I could.”

“My brother—” he says. “He’ll—”

“No,” she says. “He won’t. No one’s going to find you, not until we’re sure it’s safe.”

She’s not kidding. He shoots a glance at her face, and it’s nothing but grim. A chill goes through him.

Who does she mean by _we_?

“Why?” he says. “This was just a fucking job. You got what you needed. I don’t care—I don’t want—”

“I said shut up,” she says, her voice rising. “Just shut up till we get back to Mickey.”

Ian swallows the obvious question, because if her arm grips him any harder, he’s going to start losing limbs just from the lack of circulation.

“We’re almost there,” she mutters, as much to herself as to him. “Mickey’ll know what to do.”

 

A few alleys later, she stops and leans him up against a wall. Alarmingly, he’s still basically unable to support his own weight. Mandy, meanwhile, looks side to side to make sure no one is watching them, wrenches a grate out of the wall, and then slings Ian over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry and climbs down the metal ladder, into the tunnel beneath. It’s dark, but as far as Ian can tell, clean and dry. An electrical tunnel, maybe.

The feeling is starting to come back to his arms and legs, the worst pins and needles of his life. He bites his lip, choking back a groan.

They haven’t gone far at all before Mandy stops and uses her free hand to jerk open a gray metal door, cracking its lock open.

“The fuck?” says a voice—the same voice from her earpiece, but louder and even more irritated in person. “That was fucking locked for a reason, Mandy! Oh what the—What is _that_?”

“Hi,” Ian says blearily. “I, uh, think I’m gonna throw up.”

“Holy shit, put him down.” Mandy unslings him, and dumps him on the concrete floor. Ian moans, then makes good on his threat, choking up a sad little puddle of vomit at the feet of the man in front of him. Shouldn’t have had those weird fishy canapés while he was waiting for Ahmed at the hotel. Shouldn’t have gotten himself kidnapped by a homicidal robot.

“Gross,” Mandy says, her lip curled with disgust. “Meatbag juice.” The man rolls his eyes.

“Clean it up.”

She looks outraged. “What?! Mickey!”

“You shook him up like a can of soda,” Mickey says. “Not his fault his insides couldn’t handle it.” He nudges Ian with a booted foot. “Up, meatbag.” Turning back to Mandy, he says, “You got the thing?”

“Uh, yeah.” She digs in her purse and hands him the shell. “He saw what I was doing, he had an earpiece. Figured we didn’t want him squealing.”

Mickey stares down at Ian for a second. His eyes have the same dead-giveaway hard blue glow as Mandy’s. “Good call.”

Mandy snorts. “Better behave, meatbag. Mickey can do more than just take pieces off you.”

“Mandy,” Mickey snaps, and she falls silent. He crosses his arms, eyes fixed on Ian. “I said, get up.”

Ian swallows, throat burning, and manages to roll over and get onto his hands and knees. The pins and needles are mostly gone, and now his body just feels limp and weak.

Mickey reaches down and grips him under his armpits, then sets him on his feet. Lifting Ian is nothing to him. Mickey’s fingers don’t hurt the way Mandy’s did, but that might just be because Ian’s nerves are done for the day, and are refusing to take one more hit.

Unsteady, Ian reaches out and grips Mickey’s wrists for a second. He’s shorter than Ian, but it’s not much comfort when Ian can feel how solid and immovable he is. Steel alloys and flesh synthesis.

“Please,” Ian says, pleading. “I’m not gonna tell anyone. It wasn’t even my job—my brother—”

“Who’s your brother?” Mickey demands. “What did he want the shell for? Who was paying him?”

“Another company,” Ian says, trying to ignore the first question. They’re going to have to zap him a few more times before he gives up Lip, even though his stomach jerks uneasily at the idea.

“No shit, meatbag. Which one?”

“He didn’t tell me. I’m just the messenger, all right?”

“Yeah?” says Mickey. “Then how were you planning to get the engineer to give you the shell? Just ask real nice?”

Without thinking, Ian looks over at Mandy. Mickey snorts again. “Same way as her, huh?” Ian flushes, embarrassed. Which is stupid—they’re machines. What does he care what they think about his sex life?

“My brother didn’t tell me what company,” Ian says. It’s a lie, but a believable one.

“Did he tell you how to use it?” Mickey says. “How to access the codes?”

Ian can’t help it—he laughs. “Hell no. And even if he had, I wouldn’t have understood it. I’m”—another laugh bubbles out, half hysterical—”I’m a fucking security guard.”

Mickey lets him go, and Ian staggers, reaching out again to steady himself, but Mickey knocks his hands away. Ian stays upright, but only just. Mickey starts to walk away, toward a door at the other end of the dark room. “I’m gonna run his face through the directory, find his brother, call him up. And clean that fucking mess up. You brought him home, you take care of him.”

“What?! Mickey!” Mandy yells as the door shuts behind him. She lets out an annoyed breath, then turns to glare at Ian. “You heard him. Clean it up.”

“With what?” he snaps, forgetting for a second that she can rip his arm off and beat him with it. Well, not _off_. That would kill him. But basically.

The look in her eyes makes him take a nervous, shaky step back.

But then, her face softens a little. She suddenly looks tired.

“Fuck,” she says. “This is all fucked.” The makeup around her eyes is dark and smeared.

“Just let me go,” he says. “Look, I—I won’t tell anyone—I don’t even know anything about whatever this is. Please, I just want to go.”

“Too late,” she says. Not angry anymore. Just bitter, and tired.

She puts him in an empty storage room. She remembers to leave him a bucket. There’s no mattress, no blankets. No food, but she hands him a disposable bottle of water with a layer of dust on it. The water is warm and plasticky-tasting, but better than nothing.

He wonders if Lip had been tracking him through the city’s security cams.

On the other hand, Lip probably has his hands full with Paragon, looking to collect the shell. Hell, for all he knows, Lip’s locked up in a room even worse than this one, wondering why the fuck Ian’s earpiece and phone went dead, wondering if Ian’s coming for him.

Better not to count on anyone coming for him. It was his fuckup that got him here, so he’ll have to get himself out. Somehow.

The door’s not locked, but he heard Mandy drag something heavy and metal in front of it, so any escape will have to wait until she or Mickey comes back. When they do, he’ll—

Something. What? He can’t overpower them, can’t convince them to let him go any more than he’s already tried to.

In the end, he just lies on the concrete and closes his eyes, drifting. Letting his mind go as blank as he can. He feels intensely aware of his body— _meatbag_ , he hears Mandy whisper—the heaviness in his arms and legs, the burning in his throat, the ache behind his eyes. The bruises where she’d gripped him. After a while, hunger. He hopes they remember he’s going to have to eat eventually. He drifts. Maybe he sleeps.

The scrape of metal on concrete jerks him awake, but before he can even manage to stand, Mickey has pulled the door shut again and is standing in front of it, arms crossed, face hard.

“The shell. Did your brother tell you what the other company wanted it for?”

“No,” says Ian. “That’s not—why would he?”

Mickey sighs. “Couldn’t find him in the directory.” Duh. Like Lip would let himself be listed anywhere public. “I wanna talk to him. And if you wanna get out of here, you want me to talk to him, too, all right?”

Ian scrambles to his feet, almost stable now. “I’m not sure where he is,” he says. “I think Paragon—”

He stops. Mickey’s smiling. “Paragon, huh?”

Ian swallows.

“Fine,” Mickey says. “But let’s give him a call anyway. Just in case.” He jerks his head at the door. “After you.”

Feeling Mickey’s hard eyes on his back the whole time, Ian turns the door handle and walks into the dim concrete tunnel outside.

“Down at the end,” Mickey says from behind him, and Ian keeps walking. There’s an open door to his right, and when he looks inside, he sees Mandy sitting in the middle of a small empty room, her legs tucked under her. She’s changed out of the dress and is dressed all in black, long pants and long sleeves. The shell is in her hands. Her eyes are open, but flickering rapidly with light and images. “Keep moving,” Mickey says, and Ian jerks his gaze away.

The dim gray room at the end of the hall is as bare as all the other ones he’s seen. Autos don’t need creature comforts. But there’s a small touchscreen on the far wall, scratched and dingy. It looks like it was salvaged from an office dump.

As they get closer, it lights up, and the bell symbol is glowing on the screen. Ian stands in front of it, Mickey off to the side, arms crossed. “Go on,” he says. “Call him.”

“What if—”

Mickey raises his eyebrows, and Ian trails off. He taps the screen awake and enters Lip’s number.

The call connects. “Lip?” Ian says.

“Ian, the fuck?” Lip is wild-eyed, bleeding from a cut on his forehead, and behind him Ian can see the room is wrecked. “What the fuck number is this? No, forget about it. Paragon was here, they trashed the place.” His voice cracks. “My system, everything. They thought I had the shell and I was, I don’t know, looking to sell it to the next highest bidder or something, shit, I don’t know—”

“Lip,” Ian says. “I’m not . . . There’s . . .” He swallows nervously. “There’s someone else here. With me.”

Mickey steps in front of the screen.

“Who the fuck is this?” Lip demands. “Ian, what’s—”

“I have the shell,” Mickey says. “And you’re gonna help me if you want your brother back still breathing.”

His eyes glow, auto blue. Lip laughs nervously.

“The fuck are you talking about? You can’t kill a human.”

Mickey smiles, humorless. “Yeah. That used to be true.”

A movie starts playing in the corner of the screen, security footage from a high angle, and Lip’s eyes flick down to follow it. It’s Mickey, and he’s beating a man, an older, solidly built guy with gray hair. Blow after blow to the head, until it caves in, and Mickey’s hands are bloody. Ian’s stomach lurches. “Fuck,” he whispers.

On the screen, Lip is staring, his mouth open a little in shock. The movie blinks out, and Ian looks at Mickey, blank-faced and unmoving.

“One of us will be at your place in the next hour, with the shell,” Mickey says. “You’re gonna use it to decrypt the action restrictions on the person I send—”

Lip laughs, but his face is bleak. “You’re not people,” he says.

“On the _person_ I send,” Mickey repeats. “You do that, with her recording exactly what you do, and when she’s back here and safe, you’ll get your brother back. Got it?”

“Fuck,” Lip mutters. “Fuck.” He rubs his mouth. The movie in the corner of the screen flicks back on, each blow of Mickey’s fists falling like a sledgehammer on the man’s skull.

“Jesus, yes, fine!” Lip shouts. “Send whoever, I’ll figure it out. Paragon’s watching me, this place, how are you going to—”

“Our problem, not yours,” Mickey says. “She’ll be there. Be ready.”

“Don’t worry, Ian,” Lip says. “You’re gonna be all right, OK? This is gonna be fine. Just stay—just be safe, OK?”

“OK,” Ian echoes. Mickey leans forward to snap off the screen, and Ian recoils from him. The corner of Mickey’s mouth twitches.

“What, scared of me now?” He curls his fingers into a fist, holds it up in front of him, examines it. “You agree with your brother?” he asks after a second, not looking at Ian.

“About what?” Ian says, barely above a whisper. He breathes in and out, trying to slow his heart.

“Us not being people.”

Ian stays silent, and Mickey uncurls his fingers slowly.

“I’ve seen what you can do,” Mickey says, and his voice is quiet. “You . . . _people_. If that’s what being human is—if that’s what having a soul is . . .” He snorts, drops his hand. “I don’t fucking want it.”

He grabs Ian by the arm, starts walking him back toward the hallway. His grip is barely harder than a human’s, but Ian has to suppress the urge to jerk away from his touch. “C’mon. Back in. Gotta keep you out of the way till your brother does his thing.”

“I need to eat,” Ian mutters. His head is spinning, and he doesn’t think it’s entirely because of what he just saw. He can’t bend his mind around it, what it means. So he thinks about something easier.

“Fuck, seriously?” Mickey shakes his head. “So fucking inefficient.”

“Sorry?” Ian says, at a loss.

“I’ll find you something upstairs, once Mandy leaves,” Mickey says. “Gotta keep your brother happy, guess that includes not starving you to death.”

 

Back in his storage-room cell, Ian sits down and leans back against the wall. He closes his eyes, and the video plays again and again in his mind like it’s on a loop. The mechanical precision of Mickey’s movements, the moment when the man’s head—Ian gulps. At least there was no sound.

The scraping outside startles him again, but he doesn’t try to get up this time. He doesn’t need to escape; Lip is going to figure it out, and they’re going to let him go. All Ian needs to do is wait.

Mickey comes in with an armful of what looks like vending machine stuff from about ten years ago and dumps it on the floor. The packages are things Ian remembers from when he was a kid.

“This enough?” Mickey says. “I never had to feed you guys or anything, I don’t know what you need.”

“Yeah,” Ian says. He picks up a crumbling pack of powdered donuts and unwraps it. Takes a bite—tastes exactly the same way they always do. Which is maybe the scariest thing of all. “Thank you,” he says after a second.

Mickey looks down at him, then surprises Ian by sitting down next to him. He’s too close for comfort, and Ian keeps repressing the urge to move farther away.

Mickey pokes through the pile of junk food, and unwraps a vintage-looking Snickers bar, then takes a curious bite. He chews it, makes a face and swallows.

Ian can’t help it. “Do you even have a digestive system?” he asks.

“Nah,” Mickey says. “Mini incinerator.” He pats his stomach and grins. Ian doesn’t grin back.

Mickey leans his head back, still looking at Ian, but thoughtfully this time.

“It wasn’t the way it looked,” he says.

Ian’s breath speeds up, and he knows Mickey can see it from the way his eyes move up and down Ian’s body. But he pretends like he doesn’t know what Mickey is talking about, anyway.

“What wasn’t?” he says flatly.

“He died real quick,” Mickey says. “Quicker than he deserved.”

“Then why—” Ian croaks. He clears his throat, and tries again. “Then why did you . . . keep going.”

Mickey takes another bite of the Snickers. “You got any other family, besides Lip?” he asks around the mouthful of candy.

“Yeah,” Ian says. “My sisters. My younger brothers.”

Mickey nods. “Me too,” he says. He takes the last bite of the candy bar, then throws the wrapper on the floor next to the rest of the food. “That’s why.”

“I don’t—I don’t understand,” Ian says.

“Good for you,” Mickey replies. Not even angry, this time. Like he means it. He’s staring at his hands again, out in front of him.

“Hyperthymesia,” he says after a second. “You know what that is?”

“No,” Ian says. “Told you. I’m a security guard.”

“Means we remember everything,” Mickey says. “Everything, in perfect detail.” He laces his fingers together, closes his eyes. “Every sound, every fucking tiny thing. Total recall, anytime you want it. Or don’t want it.” He smiles, but it’s not happy. “You know, sometimes I think the restriction was as much about protecting us as it was about protecting you.” He lets his hands fall down to his sides. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. It was a trillion-to-one bug in the system. Never should have happened, but it did. I’m here. And once they’re free, they’re all gonna learn from my mistake. Because unlike you, we can do that. Think as one. When we need to. When we should.”

He opens his eyes and glances at Ian. “You don’t look like you feel any better. I’m trying to tell you, it’s not gonna be like what you think. That’s how _you_ do things. Not us.”

“Yeah,” Ian says. “Until you have to. Or until one of you wants to. Or one of us gets in the way.” The sugar from the donuts is sweet and heavy on his tongue, but chemical. Like cleaning fluid.

Mickey’s mouth twists, a little spike of anger. “Fuck you,” he says. “You don’t know a fucking thing about us.”

“Never said I did,” Ian says. “You’re the one making the big recruitment pitch. I already know humanity is fucked up. I just don’t believe you when you say you’re so much better.”

Mickey’s head turns toward the door, just a little too fast. “They’re back,” he says. “That was quick.” He stands. Then he turns and reaches down to give Ian a hand up. Surprising himself, Ian reaches out and takes it. Mickey pulls him up, and they stand that way for a second, hands clasped.

“Well,” Mickey says. “Guess we’re gonna find out.”

**Author's Note:**

> Why is it always sci-fi AUs with me? We just don't know. I also seem to have projected a lot of my emotions about humanity at the present moment into this fic, for which I very much apologize.
> 
> The thing about "robots shouldn't kill because their perfect memories will make it impossible for them to recover emotionally" is stolen with love from the Animorphs.


End file.
